4 June 2022

Royal Unction

Englishmen, bemused by the coincidence of Pentecost with a Seventy-year 'Jubilee', might be interested by an historical coincidence: after the destruction of the ancient Regalia of England under Cromwell, the only survivors were the bird-shaped ampula for the Oil; and the spoon used (merely silver-gilt) during the anointing.

11 comments:

  1. Are you sure about the ampulla? I thought that the only survivors were the anointing spoon and the Black Prince’s ruby.

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  2. What is wrong with silver gilt?

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  3. I second motuproprio. I, too, believed it is only the spoon that survived not the ampulla. Besides the Black Prince’s ruby another part of the current regalia pre-dates the Restoration. One of the precious stones (my aged mind forgets which one) was taken from a ring on the finger of Edward the Confessor in his shrine.

    I do shamefully admit the source of my information is the BBC so its provenance may be questionable.

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  4. Your unabashed disdain for Her Majesty is disconcerting, disappointing and highly regrettable. I gather we’re meant to bring some German or Spanish bloke to the throne. One wonders, if you’ve got this so wrong, what else have you got wrong.

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    1. Not "some German or Spanish bloke", but an Australian, Simon Abney-Hastings, Earl of Loudoun: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVzDf-KhXU

      AvB.

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  5. I agree with Deimater. Your banging on about the the Royal House detracts from your liturgical and religious postings. What about the legitimacy of the Plantagenet line, whose descendants number most of the middle and upper classes who have bothered to trace their family tree? Succession by descent is always a problematic and potentially flawed exercise. Just go with the family that has ended up on top through a series of political and genealogical accidents. All our monarchs since William IV, less Edward VIII, have had in varying degrees and different aspects more of a positive than a negative influence on our nation.

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  6. The ampulla dates from 1661. Only the medieval 'merely silver-gilt' spoon, the ruby - as noted above, and three swords from the Stuart era survived Cromwell.

    I ask again what is wrong with silver gilt? It has a purpose in the making of flatware to protect the silver. Hence, in domestic settings one sees gilt egg spoons (to protect from hydrogen sulphide), berry spoons (to protect from fruit acids) etc.

    I would have thought a medieval gilt spoon something to be valued and esteemed but, as has also been noted above, some people cannot respect our glorious Sovereign Her Majesty The Queen - or the Pope for that matter - perhaps they should be left to base metal flatware.

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  7. While a monarchist, I am comoelled to admit that our host is correct -poposed laws (or rather "laws") have been assented to that should have been torn up. Then there is the problem of the House of Windsor's exceedingly tenuous title to the throne. Some interlocutors' posts smack of "My Country (Queen) right or wrong - an evil attitude.

    AvB.

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  8. Re the House of Platagenet: https://www.superflumina.org/king-richardiii-rise-house-tudor.html

    AvB.

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  9. I cannot understand Royalism particularly in its manifestations in the UK in the here and now.
    It is little known that Ireland had a colony in Scotland which was 100% Catholic and Irish something like the German places in South America. I got my culture and sense of history there Marian and Corpus Christi processions and all.
    Again I cannot understand temporal royalty it is bamboozling befuddling beyond me.

    Any economic argument for it is spurious in my humble opinion.

    There is only one King!

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